Doctor Who Rare Entries Contests

DWRE6: 16 August 2006

Results

A smaller than usual field of entries, with just 28 people battling for
supremacy; a battle won by Ceadge with an excellent score of just 216.
Dave Woodley was second and in joint third place Simon Kinnear and
Jonathan Morris. Wilf records his first entry outside the top five; in
fact, he's outside the top ten!
CEADGE DAVE WOODLEY JONATHAN MORRIS JMOL
0 Derek Ware Eliz. Blattner Eileen Way Howard Lang
1 Dodo Chaplet Barbara Wright Vicki Sarah Jane
2 Gond City Vulcan Silver Carrier Space Station C
3 Motor cycle Milk float Parachute Mineshaft lift
4 Framing the Doc Tripping guard Guide for Leela Stopping Namin
5 Time Lords The 2nd Doctor Peri Sarah Jane
6 Jacq. Pearce Eliz. Parker Helen Blatch Pennant Roberts
7 Pipe A Dalek Ace's art block Dock bay doors
8 Snake Gallifrey Stonehenge Tardis doors
9 Platform One Gelth in theatre Himself Himself
To review the scoring:
The scores on the different questions are MULTIPLIED to produce a final
score for each entrant. Low score wins; a perfect score is 1. If your
answer to a question is correct, then your score is the number of
people who gave that answer, or an answer I consider equivalent. A
wrong answer, or a skipped question, gets a high score as a penalty.
This is the median of:
- the number of entrants
- the square root of that number, rounded up to an integer
- double the largest number of entrants giving the same answer (right
or wrong) as each other on the question
Here is the complete table of scores.
RANK SCORE ENTRANT Q0 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q5 Q6 Q7 Q8 Q9
1 216 Ceadge 1 3 1 2 4 3 3 1 1 1
2 324 Dave Woodley 1 1 3 1 1 2 1 9 3 2
3 432 Jonathan Morris 1 3 2 1 1 3 3 1 1 8
4 480 Jmol 1 1 3 1 1 5 1 4 1 8
5 729 Chris Brannigan 1 3 3 1 1 3 3 3 3 1
6 810 Simon Kinnear 1 1 2 3 3 3 1 1 3 5
7 960 fortmap 1 1 2 2 3 5 1 1 2 8
8 1,080 Mock Ferret 1 2 2 2 3 3 1 3 1 5
9 1,440 Ed Jolley 2 3 1 3 1 8 2 1 1 5
10 1,620 sontaran@tiscali 1 3 2 1 1 5 WR 9 1 1
11 2,700 Bazza 1 3 1 2 1 5 3 3 2 5
12 3,456 Peter Morris 2 3 2 3 2 8 1 3 1 2
13 4,608 Chriskelf 1 2 4 2 2 1 3 3 2 8
14 5,760 Wilf 2 5 3 3 1 8 1 1 1 8
15 6,912 Dave Jones 1 3 4 1 2 8 2 WR 1 1
= 6,912 beyondthevoid 1 1 2 1 1 8 3 3 3 WR
17 8,640 Andrew Curnow 2 3 3 2 2 5 3 1 1 8
18 9,216 Biggles 2 2 4 1 1 WR 3 4 3 1
19 11,520 Lee Johnson 1 5 3 1 4 2 3 4 1 8
20 12,960 Cols123 1 1 2 2 4 3 2 9 3 5
21 13,824 Beano 2 3 1 2 4 3 3 2 2 8
22 17,280 Luke Curits 1 1 3 3 4 8 3 4 1 5
23 24,300 snacky1973 1 5 3 1 4 3 1 9 3 5
24 25,920 genesisrockz 2 5 2 2 4 3 3 9 2 1
25 41,472 btn 2 2 3 1 WR 8 3 9 2 1
26 116,640 yohinnchild 2 3 4 1 4 3 3 9 3 5
27 233,280 Tim Barnett 2 3 2 3 WR 3 2 9 3 5
28 583,200 Aloysius 1 5 3 2 6 8 3 9 3 5
Here is the complete list of answers given. Each list shows correct
answers in the order worst to best (most to least popular). >>>
indicates that the "more specific variant" scoring was used.
Once again, an oaf on rec.arts.drwho thought it would be funny to post
his answers publicly. I say "thought it would be funny" because
this individual ("Lio Convoy") is a repeat offender and merely
offered the ludicrous defence that he did not wish to pass on his email
address to a stranger. Fine, then use an anonymiser, or don't enter.
As a result of this action, I will no longer be posting DWRE
competitions on news groups, although I may continue to advertise them
there.
As usual, where legitimate answers duplicate those of the miscreant,
they are identified with a *.
Another dope, who emailed me to ask whether the contest was still worth
entering after this act of vandalism, proceeded to also post his
answers publicly - this time, in error. Since this was in the dying
hours of the contest, I have allowed the entry to stand.
[b]0. Name someone who was contracted to work on Doctor Who before 23
November 1963.[/b]
2 Peter Brachacki (designer, pilot)
2 Reg Cranfield (actor)
2 Rex Tucker (Director)
2 Terry Nation *
2 Verity Lambert
1 Anthony Coburn (writer)
1 Bernard Lodge (titles)
1 Daphne Dare (costumes)
1 David Whitaker (Story editor)
1 Derek Newark (actor)
1 Derek Ware (fight arranger)
1 Eileen Way (actor)
1 Elizabeth Blattner (makeup, pilot)
1 Gerald Taylor (Dalek)
1 Howard Lang (actor)
1 Jeremy Young (actor)
1 John Lucarotti (writer)
1 Maureen Heneghan (costimes)
1 Norman Kay (music)
1 Norman Stewart (Prod Asst)
1 Waris Hussein (director)
1 William Hartnell
1 William Russell
A nice easy one to start with. I have assumed that anyone who worked in
any professional capacity on any episode of the programme known to have
been in production before 23 November 1963 qualifies. With
post-production, one has to be a little more careful, but only Norman
Kay who provided music could conceivably have provided his contribution
too late, and since he in fact provided music for the Pilot, he easily
qualifies. The basis for the assumption is that even BBC staff
directors and designers would be contracted to work for the BBC, and so
if under the terms of that contract they are required to work on Doctor
Who, they can be said to be contracted to work on Doctor Who. Those
working for freelance suppliers like Shawcraft Models might also have
been acceptable.
[b]1. Name a companion who appeared with the First Doctor[/b]
5 Ben Jackson
3 Dodo Chaplet
3 Tegan
3 Turlough
3 Vicki
2 Polly
2 Steven Taylor
1 Barbara Wright
1 Ian Chesterton
1 Jo Grant
1 Katarina
1 Sara Kingdom
1 Sarah Jane Smith
1 Susan *
This question was deliberately designed to permit Three Doctors and
Five Doctors answers, which created a pleasing collision on Tegan and
Turlough. Ben Jackson, however, is evidently the just-obscure-enough
companion of choice.
I note that in general, this one-Doctor-per-question structure places a
lot of emphasis on multi-Doctor stories. Thinking in this way does not
always help entrants, however...
[b]2. Name a non-Earth location visited by the Second Doctor[/b]
4 Dulkis (The Dominators)
>>> 1 The Island of Death
4 Gallifrey (The Five Doctors)
>>> 3 The Dark Tower
>>> >>> 2 Tomb of Rassilon
3 Moon (The Moonbase)
3 Space Station Camera (The Two Doctors)
3 Vulcan (Power of the Daleks)
2 Alpha Four Beacon (The Space Pirates)
2 Silver Carrier (The Wheel in Space)
2 Telos (Tomb of the Cybermen)
2 The Land of Fiction (The Mind Robber)
1 Gond City (The Krotons)
1 Omega's realm (The Three Doctors)
1 The Roman Zone (The War Games)
This question was originally "name an alien planet visited by the
Second Doctor" until I realised just how limited the answers were
(Dulkis, Vulcan, Gallifrey... er... er...). The entrant who answered
"Gallifrey" was scuppered by one who answered "The Tower of
Rassilon" - which I took to mean The Dark Tower - and another who
answered "The Tomb of Rassilon" - a room within The Dark Tower.
I suspected that the three entrants who cited the Moon would be
scuppered in time by one who answered - frankly, more obviously -
the Moonbase, but it was not to be.
I accepted "Omega's Realm" and "The Land of Fiction" as the
best names available for those locations. Once again, an out-of-era
answer (Space Station Camera) does badly. You were better off sticking
to 1960s stories.
[b]3. Name a mode of transport used by the Third Doctor[/b]
3 The Tardis
3 Wheelchair (Spearhead from Space)
2 Boat
>>> 1 Speedboat (Planet of the Spiders)
2 Motor cycle (The Daemons)
2 Motor tricycle (Day of the Daleks)
2 Space ship
>>> 1 Recovery 7 (Ambassadors of Death)
2 Teleport (The Mutants)
2 Walking
1 Cherry picker (The Green Death)
1 Diving Bell (The Sea Devils)
1 Hovercraft (Planet of the Spiders)
1 Land Rover (The Green Death)
1 Milk float (The Green Death)
1 Mineshaft lift (The Green Death)
1 Parachute (Planet of the Daleks)
1 Prison Van (Mind of Evil)
1 Stolen car (Spearhead from Space)
1 Whomobile
Lots of choice here, but again a couple of people fell foul of the more
specific variant rule. Not surprisingly, "The Tardis" is one of the
top answers, although with a larger field, I would expect to see it
garner more votes, and probably the Whomobile too.
Nobody voted for Bessie - except rec.arts.drwho vandal Lio Convoy
that is.
[b]4. Describe a use made of the Fourth Doctor's scarf, other than as
an item of clothing.[/b]
6 A tripwire
>>> 4 Tripping up Eldrad (The Hand of Fear)
>>> 1 Tripping up the Master (Logopolis)
4 Framing the Doctor (The Leisure Hive)
3 Measuring squares (Pyramids of Mars)
2 Rescuing Romana from a cliff (Stones of Blood)
2 Unravelled as a trail through the Tardis (Castrovalva)
1 Bandage (Warrior's Gate)
1 Blindfold (The Face of Evil)
1 Guide for Leela (The Invisible Enemy)
1 Leaving a false trail (The Android Invasion)
1 Stopping Namin shooting Warlock (Pyramids of Mars)
1 Tie up an enemy
1 Tripping up executioner (Masque of Mandragora)
1 Tripping up guard (Robot)
1 Trying to turn off switch (Ark in Space)
Wrong
1 No answer given
1 Slingshot
Another blow struck by More Specific Variant scoring. Tripping up
Eldrad was a very popular answer already but "tripwire" is a less
specific variant of that, and so is tripping up the Master. I have kept
the Doctor's tripping of his execution in Masque separate however, as
- if my memory is accurate - the Doctor sort of scoops his legs out
from under him, rather than leaving the scarf stretched as a tripwire.
The same is true of the guard in Robot.
"Framing the Doctor" was the second most popular answer, and after
some thought I treated "strangling Stimson" as equivalent. That
entrant should not complain too much, since I nearly marked this wrong.
It's not at all clear that the scarf was actually used to perform the
strangulation, only that this is how it is made to appear.
As it happens up to this point, no answer has been marked wrong which
is something of a first for a DWRE competition, but certainly a change
after the last one! So here is the first wrong answer, but even this
one might be right! I can't find a story in which the Doctor's
scarf is used as a slingshot, and the entrant did not reply to my
request for clarification. Obviously, if they - or anybody - can
manage to cite one, I will correct the score accordingly.
The * answer was "rope" which would have been wrong. That doesn't
reach the standard of "describe a use", it merely names another
object which might be put to a similar use.
[b]5. Name a character or race of beings who appeared with the Fifth
Doctor, and who also appeared with at least one earlier Doctor and at
least one later Doctor.[/b]
8 Humans
5 Sarah Jane Smith
3 Brigadier
3 Daleks *
3 Peri
3 Time Lords
>>> 1 Gallifreyans
2 The Second Doctor
Wrong
1 Black Guardian (did not appear after Enlightenment)
Now this is a bit trickier, and there is a clearly wrong answer. The
Black Guardian did not appear with any Doctors after Davison, and
multi-Doctor stories won't help you here either.
I'll whizz through the correct answers: humans and Daleks obviously
qualify, Sarah Jane appeared with Pertwee and Baker in their normal
run, met the Fifth Doctor in the Dark Tower and met the Tenth Doctor in
School Reunion. Peri met the Fifth and Sixth Doctors in their normal
run, and the Second Doctor in The Two Doctors. Time Lords featured in
The Deadly Assassin, Arc of Infinity and The Mysterious Planet to name
just three stories which qualify them. The Brigadier met the Fifth
Doctor in Mawdryn Undead and the Seventh Doctor in Battlefield as well
as multiple adventures with earlier incarnations.
The Second Doctor is not disallowed under the regeneration/equivalent
rule: it is true that the answer "The Second Doctor" is equivalent
to the answer "The Doctor", but it happens that the Second Doctor
is the only incarnation who meets the required conditions (met the
Third Doctor in The Three Doctors, the Fifth in The Five Doctors and
the Sixth in The Two Doctors).
Nobody mentioned the Cybermen, Davros or The Master all of whom would
also have qualified! One entrant provided a complete list (which
omitted Peri and Sarah Jane) before going for Daleks. For once, Daleks
wasn't the worst answer (but wait till we get to question 7).
[b]6. Name any person credited on at least one Doctor Who episode in
the Sixth Doctor's era and at least one episode of Blake's 7.[/b]
3 Colin Baker (City at the Edge of the World, The Doctor)
3 Helen Blatch (Powerplay, Twin Dilemma)
3 Jacqueline Pearce (Servelan, The Two Doctors)
3 Lynda Bellingham (Headhunter, Inquisitor)
3 Paul Darrow (Avon, Time Lash)
2 Brian Blessed (Cygnus Alpha, Mind Warp)
2 Tom Chadbon (Countdown, The Mysterious Planet)
1 Adam Blackwood (Assassin, The Mysterious Planet)
1 Elizabeth Parker (special sound, music)
1 M.A.C. Adams (editor Orac, ATTACK OF THE CYBERMEN)
1 Pennant Roberts (Bounty, Time Lash)
1 Peter Childs (Cygnus Alpha, Mark of the Rani)
1 Robert Holmes (Killer, The Two Doctors)
1 Stephen Yardley (Sand, [i[Vengeance on Varos)
1 Yolande Palfrey (Pressure Point, Terror of the Vervoids)
Wrong
1 Terry Molloy (not in Blake's 7)
Easy to check and almost no-one got this wrong. With a bit of work it
was easy to ferret out an obscure answer - especially as I was nice
and let you have writers and directors and the like instead of just
actors. If you answered "Colin Baker", "Paul Darrow" or
"Jacqueline Pearce" off the top of your head, you were rightly
punished for your laziness ;). Why Lynda Bellingham is more popular
than, say, Brian Blessed I do not know; and what Helen Blatch is doing
so high up the list is a mystery. Is there an alphabetical list of such
people somewhere?
The * answer was Mat Irvine, which is probably right although I
didn't check it.
If Terry Molloy was in Blake's 7, then IMDB is oddly quiet on the
subject.
[b]7. Name something destroyed or damaged by Nitro 9.[/b]
9 A Dalek (Remembrance)
4 Docking bay doors (Dragonfire)
3 Deodorant cans
3 Wall (Curse of Fenric)
2 Bricks
>>> 1 Stack of Bricks (Remembrance of the Daleks)
1 Ace's art block (referred to in Dragonfire)
1 Ace's rucksack (Silver Nemesis)
1 Cybership (Silver Nemesis)
1 Inscription by lake (Battlefield)
1 Pipe (The Happiness Patrol)
1 Pottery Pigs (referred to in Battlefield)
Wrong
1 The Earth (not damaged)
Ever wondered what the most memorable use of Nitro 9 was? Apparently
it's the destruction of the Dalek in Totters Lane. Iconic for so many
reasons, and featuring in an episode which, for some, marked a
renaissance of Doctor Who, it smote the competition here with a huge 9
votes - almost a third of the field.
The Docking Bay doors in Dragonfire were an unexpected second, and
there were a few more head-scratching rulings further down.
The wall in the underground passage in Fenric was cited (variously
described) by several entrants, and when another entrant offered
"bricks" I marked that as a less specific variant of wall. When I
realised that bricks were also likely to be component parts of the Art
Block, and possibly other things besides, I ruled it a separate answer
entirely, only to revise my thoughts again when another entrant cited a
specific stack of bricks, standing next to - yes, you guessed it, the
Dalek in Totters Lane and clearly "damaged" in the same blast. This
time, I felt justified in describing bricks as a less specific variant
of a certain stack of bricks in a prescribed place.
Finally, different answers referring to the same explosion have been
treated differently (e.g. Ace's Rucksack and Cybership) - otherwise
"Deodorant cans" would have been the worst answer by far! And, no,
The Earth itself was not destroyed, or even "damaged" in any
meaningful way by any of Dorothy McShane's home-made explosives.
The * answer was Tardis, which is wrong.
[b]8. Name anything which appeared in or was referred to the Paul
McGann TV movie which also appeared in or was referred to in a previous
Doctor Who episode. For the purposes of this question, if two things
have the same name, they are assumed to be the same thing.[/b]
3 Gallifrey
>>> 1 Night sky on Gallifrey
3 Skaro
3 Sonic screwdriver
3 Tardis
>>> 1 Tardis doors
2 Doctor's second heart
2 Earth
2 Frankenstein's Monster
1 Ambulance
1 Doctor's shoes
1 Eiffel Tower
1 H G Wells
1 Neutron ram
1 Rassilon *
1 Seventh Doctor
1 Snake
1 Stonehenge
1 Tardis key
Time for my goof of the week. I had in mind fictional things of course
(Eye of Harmony, Tardis key, that sort of thing) but completely omitted
to specify that, letting in such trivialities as Ambulances, Snakes,
Stonehenge and whatnot. Frankenstein's monster should have been a
wrong answer (robot version of in The Chase and movie version of in the
TV Movie) but - with The Eye of Harmony in mind - I had already
specified that if they have the same name they are the same thing.
Despite this, there was a pleasing collision on Gallifrey, the Tardis
and the sonic screwdriver.
"H G Wells" gave me pause. Yes, Herbert George Wells is in Time
Lash and yes, The Doctor is seen reading "The Time Machine" in The
TV Movie, but does a shot of the cover of a book rise to the level of
"appeared or referred to"? I eventually decided that this entrant
got a pass on the basis that "things which have the same name are the
same thing" - the name "H G Wells" certainly appears in the TV
Movie.
[b]9. Name something which the Ninth Doctor described as
"fantastic".[/b]
8 Himself (The Parting of the Ways)
5 Dalek unable to fire (Dalek)
5 Rose * (The Parting of the Ways)
2 Gelth in theatre (The Unquiet Dead)
1 Barcelona (The Parting of the Ways)
1 Children stealing food (The Empty Child)
1 Humans
1 London Eye as Nestene transmitter (Rose)
1 Mobile Phone (Father's Day)
1 Platform One's automated systems (The End of the World)
1 Slitheen ship crashing (World War Three)
Wrong
1 Life (The Parting of the Ways)
And finally, a huge collision on the Ninth Doctor, with his dying
breath, describing himself as "fantastic". Rose and the helpless
Dalek were also popular choices. One entrant pointed out that Eccleston
often says "fantastic" when it's not entirely clear what he is
referring to, but apart from the three just mentioned (all fairly
unambiguous), only one other answer was duplicated so I don't think
the perceived problem applies.
After some thought, I marked "life" wrong, and here's why. The
entrant's answer was just that one word. That means that the Ninth
Doctor must have asserted that Life, life itself, is "fantastic"
otherwise it's a wrong answer. The entrant's supporting information
quoted the Doctor telling Rose to "have a fantastic life", but
it's not Life Itself which is being described there. To get a correct
answer out of that quote, I think you'd need something like "the
life he hopes that Rose will have without him" or some other such
circumlocution. This was not a "Venusian Shanghorn" question where
"a fantastic [BLANK]" is sufficient evidence.
If you think this ruling is in error, consider whether you would have
allowed the answer "people called 'Rose'". If not, why not?
Of course, supporting information does not need to be accurate, and if
anyone else can cite an instance in which the Doctor asserted that Life
Itself was fantastic, I will revise the score.
On that point, I don't remember The Ninth Doctor referring to humans
as "fantastic" but this might have happened in The Parting of the
Ways. Being unable to view the episode until tonight, and having had no
reply to my request for clarification from the entrant, I have
tentatively marked this correct for now. Does anyone have any harder
evidence?
DWRE7 will probably follow early next week, and I think will
(temporarily at least) exhaust my supply of good questions. I have been
writing down questions as they occur to me and so the last two quizzes
were largely compiled from that list. I shall probably rest the quiz
for a while after DWRE7 for that reason - maybe running it monthly
from then on, or whenever enough good questions stack up in my mind.
Many thanks to all who entered.
Cheers
Tom
-----
Just one correction this time around. I had Gallifreyans and Timelords the wrong way around on question 5. Timelords is the More Specific Variant.
This drops Chriskelk from 13 to 20 with all other scores remaining unchanged.
DWRE7 will be along today or tomorrow.
Cheers
Tom